


Negative Land

by mysteryroach



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - High School, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-19 16:34:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 14,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4753283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysteryroach/pseuds/mysteryroach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU where Richard, Dinesh, and Gilfoyle are high school teachers and Jared is the school counselor. It's Richard's first year and he is not up for it. And, naturally, finds inspiration from the terminally uncool yet strangely elegant Jared.</p>
<p>expect a lot of not-dates, almost-kisses, and general anxiety.</p>
<p>now with an 8tracks playlist!  <a href="http://8tracks.com/johnmunch420/losing-sight-of-the-clues">listen here</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I am an incurable, and nothing else behaves like me.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks forever to genyys for reading this while it is under construction. and for writing "safe space" which 100% inspired this.
> 
> also it is very long and nowhere near finished. i wasn't going to post any of it until it was done but who knows if it will ever truly be done. might as well get it out there now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from the song "i am a scientist" by guided by voices.

Richard Hendricks was a grown man afraid of children.

Or, not _children_ , technically, but when you got down to the emotional meat of the thing, 26-year-old Richard Hendricks was afraid of a bunch of kids.

Richard was a week into his job as a high school physics teacher in Palo Alto. It was not going well, to put it lightly. On the second day, Richard heard some of the students talking about him, and ever since, he had been off his game.

“Hey, do you have Mr. Hendricks for physics?”

“Yeah. Like…what is with that guy? Does he have something wrong with him?”

“Probably. Did you see that blinking thing he does?”

At this point, the two students started blinking at each other rapidly and bugging their eyes out and laughing hysterically. The palls of laughter wrecked him. On Friday, he heard two girls discussing whether or not they thought he was cute. One said that “even though he’s a total spazz weirdo”, he was sort of okay, the other decided that he could never overcome his spazz nature to become attractive.

Over that first weekend, he tried to pack the students’ words away so that he could focus on lesson plans, but it proved impossible. His roommate, Big Head, best friend since middle school, eventually just left Richard in the kitchen to rant to his papers alone. With Richard, it became obvious after a while that he didn’t actually want you to console him or help him, he just needed an audience to voice his aggression to. And sometimes he would get so caught up in his own words that he wouldn’t notice that you were gone until he was finished and it was dark outside.

Richard wouldn’t have picked to live with Big Head in this situation, but he wouldn’t have been able to afford living anywhere near work on a first-year teacher’s salary without his help. Big Head was a coder at Hooli, a path Richard himself wanted to take until he made the risky and impulsive decision to do teaching instead. It wasn’t like Richard was passionate about helping people, or loved kids, or anything like that. He decided out of nowhere that he would rather focus on physics than coding, and maybe teaching would be fun and maybe he’d be good at it. Who needs a big salary, or respect, or to wake up in the morning calm rather than in a state of panic? Not Richard, he told himself.

He wouldn’t be himself if he weren’t sabotaging his life.

Anyone would have probably guessed that Richard would have been the successful one between him and Big Head. But that was how it was out here. Terminally unambitious, college drop out Big Head was making good money at an industry leader, and Richard, who, after agonizing for half of his college career, decided to finish, was already an abject failure.

But he was still new. Maybe he would learn to love it. Maybe he would gradually get more comfortable in front of a classroom, and the students would learn to love physics through his weird, innovative lecturing style. Maybe.

Big Head tried to indulge these fantasies in the morning.

“You should play clips from Sponge Bob or something to explain physics concepts.” Big Head told him once as they stumbled around in the still dark kitchen.

“Like what?” Richard forced through a yawn.

“I don’t know. Like how fire can’t exist underwater. Did you ever notice that, like when they went camping and stuff?”

Initially, Richard planned on telling him that that really wasn’t relevant to anything his classes were learning, but instead they got caught up in talking about the weirdness of the Bikini Bottom universe.

“Yeah, like why didn’t they deal with the enormity of a whale? Pearl was basically the same size as a crab. In real life, she could never exist in their society. It doesn’t make sense. What kind of genetic engineering experiment went on where they could just have a whale the size of a person, and plankton the size of a rat or something? What was the point?” Richard started ranting, and it continued under his breath as he moved through the apartment to shave and brush his teeth and get dressed. Big Head went through his own routines while reacting: “I know, man! This is what I’m talking about. You need to be discussing this!”

Big Head was able to get him out the door without him panicking.

Big Head took a Hooli shuttle to work. Richard wasn’t so lucky. Big surprise, he wasn’t a fan of driving either. The drive was blessedly short, in theory, but morning traffic meant that Richard had to sit nervously, wondering when cars were going to move, if he would be late, if there was an accident up ahead or was this just the natural state of this route at this time. He gripped the wheel with white knuckles every day. Maybe, he thought, maybe I’ll get over this too.

He was banking a lot on a distant time when he would just get over it all. But that happened sometimes, right?

The teacher’s parking lot was a mess of old, discontinued, or otherwise decrepit cars. It could have been a museum for the mistakes of the auto industry. Cars were hard-edged, with black borders and duct tape everywhere. The atmosphere in the parking lot on a Monday morning was thick with failure. It probably should have been a comfort to Richard that he wasn’t the only one who hated work, but it was worse. He didn’t have the skills to commiserate with anyone, and so the bitterness of the rest of the staff just depressed him. And he still couldn’t fit in, because what he felt wasn’t bitterness. Bitterness would protect him. He was afraid all the time. The other teachers were depressed, but they were cool and hard. He was like an open wound.

This was the only place in Palo Alto where everyone smoked.

Maybe nicotine would relax him enough to get through his first period, but instead, he was sure that he would spend it red-faced and sputtering. Which was exactly how he usually spent it anyway. Better to take a deep breath and throw himself straight in, if anything was better.

He was just getting adjusted.

He was just getting started.


	2. Don't turn the light on, leave me alone.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richard and Dinesh strike up a weird friendship, Big Head is supportive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i spent so long not understanding how to write dinesh and then all of the sudden i was like A-HA! and anyway, i wound up having a ton of fun getting into his character.
> 
> chapter title is from the can song "don't turn the light on, leave me alone"

Richard had an empty second period, which meant he was free to luxuriate in the time he spent vomiting in the bathroom. No need to rush himself during second period! He could vomit like a king. And he did. He let himself sweat it out, he stayed on the floor until he was secure enough to stand. He brought in a toothbrush to work and made good use of it. Richard may have been ruled by his stress vomiting, but he could still create order around it.

It helped.

He was still sitting on the floor, clinging to the cool (and probably horrendously diseased) toilet, when someone walked in. The mystery person walked toward the urinal then stopped, turning his feet toward the stall Richard had holed himself in.

“Jesus Christ, dude, are you okay?” the guy asked in a softly accented voice.

“I’m fine,” Richard said. He wanted to think of an excuse, but figured that a guy walking in on another guy vomiting in a public(-ish) restroom wouldn’t want to hear any.

The guy rushed himself and left Richard alone again. Richard waited before he walked back to his classroom in order to avoid whoever just saw him.

The only time Richard felt good at work was when he walked back to his classroom and the halls were empty and quiet. He might see a student here or there, probably going to the bathroom themselves, or skipping, it wasn’t his business, and the student would make an effort not to acknowledge him. Richard, on one level, found this kind of insulting, because he was trying so hard just to exist here. But he understood. And something was nice about the echo of his shoes, the clarity of the air, when he was so used to the halls reverberating with yelling and chatter and the heat of a hundred bodies rushing around. It wasn’t enough to sustain him, but it was good enough for a two-minute stretch. Then, of course, it was back to work.

Third period. This class was behind the others, so he had to remember where they had stopped and how he was explaining things, and they asked so many goddamn questions.

“Mr. Hendricks, could you slow down?”

“Mr. Hendricks, what does this mean?”

“Can you repeat that?”

To Richard, you just…got it, or you didn’t. He got it. He didn’t know how he was supposed to break it down for six different kids who weren’t getting it, and what might work for one kid would keep being nonsense to the next one. And then they stopped giving a shit, and you lost them.

“Okay, okay, let’s go over it again,” and he would try to remember why he loved physics in the first place and hoped that his energy would transfer to the class. But really it was like his words hit a barrier and bounced right back into him, hitting his chest with a thud.

He liked talking about physics. He _loved_ it. That was why he decided this would be a good idea. He didn’t realize that he loved talking about physics in one-on-one conversations to people who wanted to learn about it, who were on similar levels to him and could engage with him.

 

Richard usually skipped lunch entirely or ate alone, but when he walked past a group of teachers sitting at a long table in the corner of the cafeteria, one yelled for him. He immediately tensed up. He hadn’t really talked to any of the other teachers, assuming that they wouldn’t have time for him, or just flat out wouldn’t like him. But he was feeling bold after another day of bombing so thoroughly, so he sat down across from the guy.

“Hey,” Richard said as he opened the single bag of chips that would be his lunch that day.

“Hi. Are you okay?” the guy asked.

“What?”

“Were you the guy who was puking in the bathroom earlier?” The guy looked less genuinely concerned and more competitive, as if he was thinking that at least there was someone here in worse shape than he was.

“Oh. Uh, yeah. Just stress, I’m not sick or anything.” Richard chuckled and tried to play it off.

“Yeah. I recognized your shoes. I’m Dinesh Chugtai, I teach computer science.”

“Oh, okay. I’m Richard, I teach physics.”

“You’re new here, right?” Dinesh asked. He had a pretty intense gaze, but it didn’t seem like it was for any particular reason. Richard guessed that he just looked at everyone like that.

“Yeah.” Richard opened a can of soda. “Hey, listen, does it…does it get easier? You know, teaching?”

Dinesh laughed. “Fuck no, it doesn’t.”

That wasn’t the answer Richard was hoping for.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Dinesh asked. “Do you know how many degrees I have? And I’m pretty much teaching a bunch of whiny asshole piece of shit kids how to type? No. It’s hell.”

“Oh.” Richard coughed in place of a real response.

“I have this cousin, Wajeed, you know? And when we were growing up, he was the biggest fuckup ever. He got caught smoking opium at my parents’ house. He dropped out of school. Complete asshole. You know what he’s doing right now? His stupid app just got funded.”

Dinesh was waiting for Richard to react, but his mouth was full of chips.

He swallowed hard and said, “Oh. Sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah. You think I couldn’t do what he’s doing? I come up with better ideas when I wipe my ass. It’s sickening.”

“So why, uh…why aren’t you pursuing that? Why are you here?” Richard asked.

“My parents, you know. ‘We’re not gonna support you anymore! You need to find real work!’ So I wound up teaching.”

Richard nodded.

“I’m not going to stay here.” Dinesh said.

“Yeah, yeah.” Richard got up to throw his empty bag away. Dinesh didn’t even wait for him to sit back down before he continued.

“His app is so stupid, and he fucked around his entire life, but because he’s handsome and charming and _his_ parents see no problem with supporting _him_ , he’s probably going to be a millionaire and I’ll still be here, teaching no-talent brat after no-talent brat until I finally can’t take anymore and run into traffic and get hit by a bus. It’s so unfair.”

Richard cleared his throat. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, most people’s first companies completely fail, so your cousin might not be successful.”

Dinesh chuckled bitterly. “Maybe I’ll be so lucky.” Dinesh paused for a second. “Thanks, man.” He went to shake Richard’s hand.

They were brothers in bitterness now.

 

 **

The rest of the day went.

Richard could drive home, and opening the door to the apartment was like coming up from a long, long dive underwater. He slept until Big Head came home. Big Head already got dinner for himself and spent the rest of the night eating sour straws. Richard didn’t eat. They played old video games together. Big Head knew that Richard didn’t want to talk about it, and he knew that Richard had nothing to even say, except maybe “feels bad, man”, which he would sometimes write on the whiteboard they stuck to the refrigerator. To that, Big Head would add little doodles. He drew a picture of a hedgehog eating a candy apple, and Richard saw it and laughed just a little bit.

Neither one of them knew how to deal with what Richard was going through, but it was enough to just escape for a while into the world they created for themselves through a shared and tangled history. At any rate, Richard would go to bed calm enough to wake up the next morning and forget what he was so nervous about until he remembered everything about his life.


	3. You think everyone wants you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sparks fly between Dinesh and Gilfoyle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from "you got it (keep it out of my face)" by mudhoney.
> 
> can i say that dinesh/gilfoyle is not an endgame in this fic but it's pretty impossible to write them without inferring the fact that they're definitely thinking about fucking each other. i'm just saying. so you can fill it in yourself- they are definitely falling in love.

Talking to Dinesh did not make Richard feel better, but it broke up the day into manageable parts. His schedule went like this: abject terror to stress vomiting to continued terror, break for lunch and conversation, terror until quitting time. Talking to Dinesh allowed him to focus his mind on something else. He probably could have vented, but he generally just listened. Judging by the stuff that Dinesh let fly out of his mouth regularly, it was safe to at least believe that they were friends at this point, but Richard didn’t want to push it.

Here is what he learned:

Dinesh was from an apparently obscenely wealthy family in Pakistan. He never revealed what his parents did, but he freely mentioned being raised by servants and his anger at his parents’ refusal to continue to support their thirty-plus year old son. He was a genius programmer (according to him), but was rejected by the tech world due to his refusal to compromise: he would not accept shitty work and he would not put his name to it. Someday, he would create an app that would revolutionize the world and make him independently rich. He wasn’t stuck teaching basic coding to high school kids. And he had a cousin named Wajeed who was an asshole.

When Richard first decided to pursue teaching, he was nervous because he was surrounded by a lot of women, and some men, who were passionate. They wanted to help kids, they wanted to mold a new generation and save the planet. Richard was passionate about physics, and he wanted to be good at his job, but that was different. He wasn’t passionate about the role of a teacher. He felt bad about that. So it helped to know that, apparently around here, teaching was where you ended up and nobody wanted to be stuck doing it. He may have been robbing a lot of kids of a decent education, but at least he wasn’t alone. He had no idea what happened to all those girls who always came into class smiling. They must have all been assigned to different schools.

It probably was bad that he was now striving toward being hard and apathetic instead of constantly panicked. But it was better than assuming he’d die from stress at thirty because of this job.

Once, Richard decided to ask Dinesh if teaching ever made him nervous.

“No. Why should it? Fuck those kids. I don’t need to impress them.” Dinesh reacted to everything like that. Of course.

“But, I mean, there was a point where you didn’t know what you were doing or whatever, and like, you felt like you were just stumbling around up there? Right?” Richard desperately wanted to hear ‘yes, I was nervous, I got better’.

“If you never care in the first place, it won’t matter to you.” Dinesh shrugged.

Richard couldn’t help what he was about to say.

“But I do care,” Richard said. “I want to be good at this, you know? I want…I want them to like me.” He was embarrassed at his own earnestness.

“Yeah, you should stop caring,” Dinesh said. He couldn’t focus if he wasn’t the center or at least the one directing the conversation, so he turned his attention elsewhere.

“Oh look, there’s that new substitute.” Dinesh looked up. He was referring to the guy who started a few weeks earlier, who had long hair and a beard and dressed in black and flannels. “Who does he think he is?”

“What do you mean?” Richard asked.

“Jesus, you haven’t heard the kids talking? They all think he’s the coolest. He used to be in a band or something. They won’t shut up about him.”

Richard smirked. “I thought you didn’t care.”

“Shut up, I don’t.” Dinesh quickly shushed him because the new guy was approaching them. He started gesturing for him to come over. The guy looked at Dinesh, sized him up, and sat down. He said nothing. Dinesh stared at him.

Richard cleared his throat and said “hey. I’m Richard.”

“Gilfoyle.” The guy said. Richard got the impression that if he could make himself known by monosyllabic grunts, he would.

“Gilfoyle?” Dinesh snorted. “What is that? Is that your first name or your last name?”

Gilfoyle just glared at him. Not in anger, just to show that he could.

“Why?” Gilfoyle asked. “What’s your name?”

Dinesh averted his eyes as he told him, but he said the name “Dinesh Chugtai” with inflated importance.

“No. You don’t get to make fun of my name when your name is Dinesh Chugtai.” Gilfoyle said, deadpan.

“Fuck you. I’m Pakistani. What’s your excuse?”

Gilfoyle thought for a second and said, “That’s not an excuse.”

Dinesh rolled his eyes and decided he was done with the conversation.

“So,” Richard said, “what are you doing here?” He asked Gilfoyle, assuming that everybody understood the question.

“I have every right to be here.” Gilfoyle didn’t even turn to look at him.

“What? No, no, I know. I mean, like…what uh, what brings you here? As a sub?”

“Something different,” was all Gilfoyle offered.

If the conversation was stalling, Richard had no idea how to start it up again.  He waited for someone to say something.

“Well, if you ladies are done, I have shit to do. Excuse me.” And Gilfoyle got up and left.

“What?” Dinesh said in an almost whisper. “What could he possibly have to do? He’s a fucking sub.”

That was true. In his short time at work, none of the subs Richard met seemed to have any responsibilities at all. There was the elderly man who brought a VHS copy of Dumb & Dumber to every class he taught regardless of whether there was a lesson plan in place or not. There was another elderly man who argued with the students about the existence of UFOs (he believed). There was the incredibly mean and serious woman who wanted to believe she was a real teacher, but she really just spent a lot of time wandering the halls looking annoyed. It was a low bar to clear.

Richard just shrugged and said “yeah.” He let Dinesh vent about Gilfoyle, with his stupid beard, his shitty band (“you know he acts like he’s so cool and detached but I bet his band just sounds like Creed or something, god, what a loser”), his ugly shirts, until the bell rang and they went back to their classrooms. Later that night he told Big Head about the two of them and was struck by the fact that he was laughing about something that happened at work.

Big Head started calling Richard “Mrs. Krabappel”. He made Richard watch the “Simpsons” episode where the teachers all went on strike, and then Big Head would look over at Richard and stare at him just long enough and say “purple monkey dishwasher”. Richard would collapse in laughter every time. Richard insisted that he wasn’t like Mrs. Krabappel at all but he knew somebody who was. So Big Head called him “Ms. Hoover” instead. Close enough.

 

Gilfoyle didn’t work every day, but whenever he did, he sat with Richard and Dinesh at lunch. A group dynamic was solidifying. Dinesh and Gilfoyle argued with each other and Richard watched, jumping in to correct them on minor facts. It was something different, at least.

It was early October when Dinesh asked the two of them, “hey, have either of you guys ever met the guidance counselor here?” Neither of them had.

“Why?” Richard asked.

“He’s super weird,” Dinesh said. “He cares like, way too much.”


	4. Vomitrocious!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here he comes, my giant son.
> 
> (Jared helps Richard through a disastrous meeting then they don't go on a date)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title comes from a speech bubble in the arthur comics creator, a game for children that i used in college to sort through my existential angst.

It was only appropriate that they met in the bathroom. By now, Richard thought he had his vomiting under control, but it was midterm season and he had to have a meeting with a student and her parents about a failing grade. The school counselor was also present at these meetings, and they had exchanged emails to coordinate but never met in person.

Richard was always good at first impressions.

Once again, he was on the floor of the stall when a stranger walked in.

“Excuse me,” the guy knocked softly on the stall, “excuse me, are you okay?”

“Yeah, hold on,” Richard said between retches. When he stopped, he got up, sweaty and shaky, and opened the stall door to see an impossibly tall, thin man standing in front of him.

“Sorry,” Richard said. “I just uh…I have like, a meeting with a kid’s parents and I’m really nervous.”

“Oh!” The guy said, “Are you Mr. Hendricks?”

“Richard,” he corrected as he got the plastic bag holding his toothbrush out of his back pocket and walked over to the sink.

“I’m Jared Dunn, the school’s counselor. I’ll be working with you, but of course you already knew that.” Jared stood behind him with his hands in his pockets.

“Right, right”. Richard spit into the sink and washed his hands.

“Honestly though,” Jared moved a little closer and spoke a little quieter, “These things can get bad sometimes, but I’m very used to them. So don’t worry. I’ll be your tour guide through this journey.” He chuckled nervously.

“Thanks, Jared.”

They began to walk out together.

“I’m glad I ran into you actually because I didn’t know where your office was and I would have felt really stupid asking,” Richard said. Jared just laughed as he led him down.

Jared’s office was…guidance counselor-y. The white brick walls were covered in motivational posters of sunsets and seascapes, there were bookshelves filled with psychology books (for teens!), and a hilariously antiquated boombox sat in the corner. A stuffed owl was sitting on Jared’s desk, next to his nameplate. It was what you’d expect. Jared sat at his desk and let Richard sit on the overstuffed chair next to him. On the other side were two empty chairs. This was happening. Richard put his head in his hands and began breathing heavily.

“Oh god, Jared,” he said as he ran a sweaty hand over his face, “how the fuck am I going to do this?”

“Richard, I promise it will be fine. Listen, all you really need to do is verify the student’s performance. I’ll be the one asking relevant questions. You can offer some solutions to bring the grade up, but honestly, those are all pretty standard. Extra credit, tutoring. I can even cover that too and you can talk to the student on your time without the parents present. Okay?” Jared leaned close to Richard and hovered his hand over his back, being careful not to touch Richard in case he wasn’t comfortable with that.

“Okay.” Richard let out a shaky breath. “Okay. Fuck it, let’s do this.”

His head was still in his hands when they walked in. Jared stood up to shake the mother’s hand. She didn’t accept it.

“Richard,” Jared said, “This is Kaitlyn’s mother, Nona Belson-Whitehall.”

She was tiny, with short, dark hair and sunglasses on her head. She looked pissed.

“Excuse me,” she said, gesturing toward Richard, “excuse me, you’re my daughter’s physics teacher, correct?”

Richard’s voice quavered despite himself. “Yes. Richard Hendricks.”

“And why, exactly, do you feel it necessary to fail my daughter?”

“Wh—what do you mean?” Richard asked.

“Has she done something to spite you, Mr. Hendricks? Do you not like her?”

“No, of course not. I—I wouldn’t do that. It’s just…I mean, ma’am, I don’t make the rules. If someone doesn’t do the work, I can’t just…not give them a grade, right? That wouldn’t make sense. It just doesn’t work that way.”

Jared sensed Richard’s increasing panic and swooped in.

“Excuse me, Ms. Belson-Whitehall, would it be all right for us to speak to Kaitlyn privately? That way we might be better able to figure out why she hasn’t been doing her work.”

“Listen, you Frankenstein-looking piece of shit,” Nona stood up, “my daughter is not a failure. She is under a lot of pressure, and I have to say, if my brother, _Gavin Belson_ , got word of how she was being treated at this school, you may be surprised at how quickly you’ll be out on your ass.”

“Gavin Belson?” Richard asked. “The Hooli guy? Why um…why would he get involved? What could he even do?”

Jared whispered, “It’s an intimidation tactic. Don’t worry.”

“You’re goddamn right it’s an intimidation tactic. And just so you know, the superintendent of schools happens to be a close personal friend of my brother’s. So listen, you worthless little prick,” she turned her attention to Richard and leaned in close, “if this ever, ever happens again, I and my brother will make sure you never work again.” Nona got up and slammed the door behind her. Kaitlyn shrank in her seat and looked mortified.

“I’m really sorry about my mom, you guys. This is so embarrassing. I’m not like that.” She didn’t look up.

“That’s all right,” Jared said. “We can’t help who our parents are. Or who the state gives us away to, as the case may be,” he laughed to soften the blow of his non-joke.

Kaitlyn and Richard looked at each other and then back to Jared.

“Anyway,” Richard said. “Look, your mom may not get this, but you know that you can’t not do your work and expect to pass the class. So just…why aren’t you doing it?”

Kaitlyn shifted uncomfortably. Richard waited for her answer.

“I just don’t get it, okay? And whenever somebody asks a question, you just explain it in a way that’s even more confusing. So then I don’t ask any questions because it’ll just be more crap in my head that trips me up. And so I can’t do the homework because it just looks like gibberish to me.” Kaitlyn swallowed hard and looked away, sinking back in her seat.

Richard couldn’t even speak.

“Okay, that’s okay. I have a solution.” Jared clapped his hand together and picked a flyer from a bulletin board behind him. “We have a peer tutoring program, and physics is one of the more popular subjects! Do you think you could do that?” He handed the flyer to Kaitlyn.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

“Sometimes it helps to have another person explain things, especially if that person is closer in age, so you may have more of the same reference points.” Jared explained.

“Okay,” Kaitlyn said. “Can I go now? I think my mom is really mad.”

“Yeah. Fine.” Richard said, turning away in his chair. “See you on Monday.”

Kaitlyn rushed out. Richard let out a deep sigh and lowered his head onto the desk.

“It wasn’t so bad actually,” Jared said. “There weren’t even any violent threats!”

“I’m a bad teacher”, Richard said, his voice muffled.

“What? No!” Jared put his hand on Richard’s back and sat down next to him.

“Yes I am.” Without lifting his head, Richard turned to Jared. His eyes were big and wet. “You heard what she said. I just make things more confusing. I suck.”

“No, no.” Jared shook his head. They had only met an hour before but for some reason, Richard’s self-loathing statements hurt as if they were about him.

“Richard, I’ve been doing this for a while. Every student is different and responds to different things. And unfortunately, it’s impossible for you to tailor to everyone in a class of 30. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad teacher, not at all.”

“I just…I’m sorry, it’s just that I feel like such a fake when I get up there every day.” Richard turned away from Jared.

“Listen,” Jared said as he got up, “Do you want to grab dinner? There’s a taco stand that we could walk to. It’ll be good to get out of here, don’t you think?”

“Yeah.” Richard lifted his head and wiped his nose on his hand. “Thanks, Jared.”

**

The sun was setting and it was starting to get cold. Jared knew people made fun of his vest, but he was thankful for it now. It wasn’t a shield, it was just practical. He watched Richard shrink himself into his hoodie as they walked. Richard walked slowly behind him and would sometimes do little kick steps to keep up. The thought that flew into Jared’s brain before he could do anything about it was, _how cute_. Richard looked so much like an old cartoon, and that only amplified when he moved. It reminded Jared of late nights when he was a kid, watching TV, unable to sleep until suddenly his dreams were filled with Tex Avery and Ub Iwerks figures dancing around him. Watching Richard was a weird kind of comforting; nostalgic.

Richard was just struggling to keep up. When they finally got to the taco stand, he collapsed onto the sidewalk. Jared just laughed gently (the way he seemed to do everything) and asked what he wanted, and turned away the dollar bills Richard offered to pay.

“You’ve earned it,” was what he told him. Richard knew that the social custom was to fight a person whenever they offered to pay for you, but that kind of thing was always too exhausting for him to even bother. So he just said thank you and resumed huffing and puffing on the curb.

When Jared sat down next to him, his breath returned to normal. He couldn’t help but notice that Jared was the only person he had ever met who could eat a burrito neatly. He, of course, could not. Richard felt jealous of Jared, who was put together and kind, and who could almost certainly get through an entire day without panicked throwing up. He didn’t want to feel that way, since Jared was being nicer to him than anyone in recent memory, but he did.

Jared looked over at him and smiled, and Richard wiped away the glob of sour cream sitting on the corner of his mouth with his thumb and looked in the other direction. It was dark now, and the night was starting to become noisy.

“Oh! Do you hear the owls?” Jared asked. “It’s almost their mating season.”

“Really? You, uh…do you like birds?” Richard rolled his eyes at his own stupid question.

“You could say that,” Jared said, suddenly becoming faux-casual. He then put that façade away and smiled and said, “Yes. Yeah, I love birds. Birds are um, a big thing for me.”

“That’s kind of cool. I never really think about that kind of thing.” Richard said. “You know, nature.”

“Oh. I feel lucky to live in a place where I can go hiking and bird-watching and all of that.” Jared looked up at the sky, which just reflected the streetlights back to him. It was around this time that Richard realized he had made a huge mistake in ordering cilantro. He rolled onto his side and crawled to a bush, where he began vomiting profusely.

No reason the night couldn’t end the same way it began.

“Oh! Oh my god! Richard, Richard, are you all right?” Jared threw himself over to Richard’s hunched-over, shaking frame. He put his hand on Richard’s back, and even through his sweatshirt, Richard could feel that Jared’s fingers were long and cool.

“I’m fine. I’m just a fucking idiot.” Richard rolled back over and wound up inadvertently leaning against Jared’s shoulder. His face lightly shimmered with sweat.

“No,” Jared said, as he put his arm around his waist to help him up.

“Yeah. I always eat cilantro even though it makes me throw up. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” Once he was steady on his feet, he disengaged from Jared and started walking away. Jared ran behind.

Richard turned around and stopped.

“Listen, um, Jared, thank you so much for helping me out today. I couldn’t…I couldn’t have done it without you, you know?”

Jared turned his head to the side in hopes that Richard wouldn’t see him beaming.

“Sorry I was such a mess,” Richard added.

“It’s okay,” Jared said. At this point, there was no sense in denying it. They both laughed.

“So I guess, um…I guess I’ll see you around or something, right?” Richard asked.

“I’d like that.” Jared smiled.

He ignored the fact that he and Richard were in fact going to walk to the same place and waited so that Richard could walk by himself. He sat back down to listen for the owls.

**

That night, when he got home, Big Head was on the couch playing a video game.

“Shit, dude, where have you been?” Big Head asked.

“Long story,” Richard sighed as he sat down next to him. “I think I made a friend today.”


	5. When I lie on my pillow at night, I dreamed I could fight like David Watts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jared and Richard have thoughts about each other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from "david watts" by the kinks.
> 
> chapter updates are gonna be less regular from here on out because i'm busy and the inspiration is not quite flowing like it was, but rest assured. there's one scene i haven't written yet but have mulled over in my mind for the past month that will knock your damn socks off.
> 
> also i'll have another 8tracks playlist for this fic up soon. for the two people who like my 8tracks playlists!
> 
> thanks as always for the kind words and for the kudos and just for reading this & being a great fandom.

Suddenly, it was like Richard was a word Jared had learned for the first time and then noticed everywhere. But, like something from a word-a-day calendar, it was hard to turn that notice into something real. They bumped into each other, Jared would check on him during Richard’s free period, but never for too long. There was work to be done. Sometimes, Jared would go to the taco stand to see if Richard had gone there, but he always missed him.

It was hard for Jared to say what this was. These kinds of feelings always felt so immature to him, and he never figured out how to deal with them.

Jared was openly gay because he had to be. One of the biggest issues he dealt with at work was with students’ confusion over sexual identity, and he knew that seeing a gay adult who was happy with themselves was immeasurably important. But if not for his job, he might have just repressed it because that was easier. It wasn’t shame, just an aversion to _mess_.

And nothing was messier than developing feelings for someone who you hadn’t met in those tiny preapproved circles of men who you already knew were into men.

Jared remembered the old saying, “Gay dating is like job-hunting, you either have to know someone or go on the internet.”

It wasn’t an old saying, he supposed. But it felt like ancient wisdom. It was something he always carried with him, and right now he felt like he was breaking a commandment.

He tried to rationalize himself out of it. _You only met once, you were just helping him, you don’t even know him. He’s just new and that’s exciting and you’ll get used to it and it will fade._

But then he saw him again and just wanted to talk to him about something. But he had no idea what to say.

He looked him up on Facebook once. He knew that if they added each other, they would enter a kind of friendship limbo, where you know all this information about a person, but you never hung out so you had nowhere to put it. And everyone knew about this, but it was still creepy to bring it up.

He didn’t add him.

He decided to analyze why, exactly, he fixated on Richard (because that’s what it was, a weird fixation, nothing else), and figured that it had to do with the way Richard seemed to approach work. He was sensitive. He wanted to help his students, but it wasn’t in an arrogant way. A lot of first year teachers felt like they were going to really buck the system and become every student’s favorite, and it was really off-putting. Two years later, they were putting whiskey in their coffee (or at least joking about it on Facebook). Richard seemed different. Jared liked that.

Plus, if he was going to be honest, Richard had a certain something that was pretty alluring. A weird something, but it was there.

_Close the window, Jared._

Once, Richard emailed him a picture he took of an owl outside his window, and the fact that he remembered, the fact that he remembered enough to take a picture and then send it to him, made Jared want to burst.

And yet, another part of him was always saying, come on, you’re almost thirty. As if thirty-year-olds didn’t have friends, or crushes, or feel awkward. Jared always emphasized to students that there would never be a time when they wouldn’t have problems, that part of growing up and healing was about dealing with things, and every time something comes up, you get better at it. He was lucky that they never had to hear the other side of him, that worked alongside him, that told him that he was the only one who still had problems, everyone else was doing so much better, everyone else was happy and fulfilled, and he wasn’t and never would be.

He had to imagine that he would be out of a job if they knew about that.

The owl photo seemed to say to him that it was okay to email Richard back. He didn’t know what to say, of course, as usual, but he wanted to just keep the conversation going. But he forgot what small talk was. He didn’t even know what Richard liked, other than cilantro, and sending him a picture of a food that made him vomit just seemed cruel.

It was easier just to walk down the halls to see him. Jared never stayed long, because he was busy, and Richard was busy, but he never seemed to mind it when Jared stopped by. He seemed happy to see him. _That_ was an unusual occurrence in Jared’s life.

One day, he decided to stay just a little longer and have a real conversation. He sat on top of one of the desks, knowing he looked bizarre and gigantic. He hunched over himself to minimize the effect. Richard sat on top of his own desk and looked at Jared expectantly.

“How are you doing, Richard?” Jared asked.

Richard sighed. Jared liked that Richard was always honest. That he knew the rule to answer “fine” when someone asked how you were and just ignored it.

“I don’t know. I feel bad, I have to give tests and I mean…did you know I almost dropped out of college?” Richard looked right into Jared’s eyes.

“No,” Jared said, feeling himself go into therapist mode.

“Well, I did. Because my test anxiety was so bad I would go blind. I couldn’t sleep. And now I’m giving tests. It’s like, there’s something evil about it, you know? Because if I could do something else, I would, but I have no idea what, and I can’t fucking get out of giving tests. And I can’t be like, ‘hey guys, I totally used to puke all over myself before tests so like, it’s cool’, you know?” Richard was still sitting, but he was animated. His body was always doing something to punctuate his words. Jared figured that that must have helped during classes.

“Well, you don’t have to put it that way.” Jared laughed. “But it actually would be good to talk about test anxiety, so that students know that they have a sympathetic ear. It takes a lot of pressure off.”

Richard nodded. “That doesn’t make it go away though.”

“No, but it helps. Some things don’t go away.” Jared knew he wasn’t sounding helpful, but Richard was so honest, that he felt the need to be too.

“That sounded bad,” Jared acknowledged.

“Yeah,” Richard barely laughed.

“But you can always send kids my way.” Jared said.

“Sure. So you can tell them that things don’t get better and life is garbage, right?”

They both laughed at that.

Jared felt safe enough to say “exactly” rather than desperately make clear his actual intention. It felt weird to joke. Good, though, he decided.

 

**

 

It was impossible for Richard to make friends. He had one, and even that was more or less an accident. He and Big Head got paired up at random for some class assignment, and Big Head happened to see a book on Java poking out of Richard’s bag, and that was it. If he never saw it, Richard would have no friends to this day.

Making friends was impossible because it required disrupting routines. Yes, everybody has to talk to people just to move along, but to talk to someone on a deep enough level to be able to decide to plan for continued contact requires one person to pause and say “can we keep doing this”, and for Richard, that was just unthinkable.

He wanted to be friends with Jared. Even just _wanting_ to be friends with someone felt intensely strange. Whenever he saw that lurching figure outside his door, he felt happiness welling inside him. Finally, someone at this school who was kind. Someone who listened to him, someone who seemed to be happy exactly where they were. Richard didn’t know enough to say that, of course, but Jared never made any sort of announcement of what he’d rather be doing, and so Richard filled in the gaps and decided that Jared was doing exactly what he was meant to.

In a weird way, Richard was starting to feel the same about himself. But as with everything, doing exactly what he was meant to felt like divine punishment.

If he could be in purgatory with Jared, he could at least learn to be comfortable.

He knew that sounded so weird. But it was different. He considered Dinesh to be a work friend (which only started because Dinesh chose to confront him on their chance encounter in a public restroom), but Dinesh didn’t seem receptive to anything except Gilfoyle’s insults. Richard was reduced to a spectator role in this casual friendship, and he needed something else. He needed, and— _ugh_ —he knew how it sounded, but he needed someone to pay attention to him. And not in the forced context of students staring at him all day, but in a way that just let him feel human.

Richard probably could cry in front of Jared. If he ever needed to, anyway.

But he just could not figure out how friendships happened. There was no way that he could ever ask Jared to…to even do what? He didn’t know. To come to his house at three in the morning to witness his crying hour. Richard needed someone, and Jared was someone, but there was just too much standing in the way. And friendship would never come.


	6. Life's the illusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Different Thanksgivings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from "Everybody's Happy Nowadays" by the Buzzcocks.
> 
> short chapter this week to hopefully inspire me to write more. i had a ton of work, but i should have time to write soon.
> 
> also check out the soundtrack to this fic here: ["losing sight of the clues"](http://8tracks.com/johnmunch420/losing-sight-of-the-clues)

****

Richard and Big Head spent Thanksgiving together. Ordinarily, they would have gone to Big Head’s mother’s house, but the break was too short and Richard was just too exhausted to make the trip. Big Head attempted making a turkey, but he forgot to thaw it, and to take the plastic bag out so it was more or less a disaster. It was all right, as far as Richard was concerned. They never could have eaten all that turkey anyway. Instead they got Chinese food and fell asleep on the couch together. Richard wasn’t a physically affectionate person, but he liked that Big Head was. Not overbearingly so, but he was casual about something like falling asleep on the couch and waking up to find Richard drooling on his chest. There weren’t any walls between them. Richard was embarrassed when he woke up, but it faded in an instant. Big Head had seen so much worse from him, after all. There were incidents they didn’t talk about. But then, they didn’t need to. Big Head was a comfort and a constant. Honestly, there was nowhere else Richard would have wanted to spend Thanksgiving.

 

Jared always spent Thanksgiving the same way, by volunteering at senior citizens’ communities. Every year, he would spend the day with a person who would otherwise spend it alone. He would help them to cook and clean up, or do it all himself, depending on the person’s ability level. And every year, whoever he spent Thanksgiving with was also spending their day with a person who would have otherwise spent it alone.

This year, he spent the day with Roger, who was 94. He smoked and drank and would hack through laughing fits. He slapped Jared on the knee and yelled “I like you, buddy!” After dinner, he showed Jared his navy scrapbook. There were a couple of perfunctory pictures of his boat and his squadron (was that the correct term? Jared didn’t know), but it was mainly dedicated to tiny photographs of girls.

“Here, look at this one,” Roger said. He pointed out a picture of a topless Polynesian woman wearing a grass skirt. “Looks good, right?”

Jared cleared his throat and said, “Sure.”

“I told her I liked that skirt and she took it off and gave it to me! Ha ha!” Roger slapped Jared on the knee again. Ordinarily, Jared would have been uncomfortable for a lot of reasons, and he might have even brought them up to another person in another context, but Roger was happy and he was there to listen.

Jared made sure that Roger was comfortable for the night before he went home, then he wondered what else to do. It was only eight o’clock when he opened the door to his apartment. That was the weird thing about holidays, he thought. The event is over, but it’s still Thanksgiving. Life is still going on. It’s like a pocket of time that humanity agrees shouldn’t exist, and it’s jarring when you’re reminded that it does.

He put on some records and cleaned his apartment. He chatted a little with friends he made on birding websites, but they were mostly busy visiting family. He read some. He talked to himself. He wondered if he was lonely or not. It was so hard to tell. Jared was always alone. The only time he ever felt like he wasn’t was in college, and those days were long gone. They almost felt like they happened to someone else.

But he was happy that he had learned the skill of being alone. He went through a long, painful process that lasted half his life just to be comfortable with himself, but he knew that some people never were.

He was lucky.


	7. No doubt at all, no two ways about it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Insecurity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from "disney's dream debased" by the fall.
> 
> alternate title "jared, don't lose that number" (you don't wanna call nobody else!)
> 
> last update for a while most likely but we'll get there together, folks! i love you!

When school started up again, there was a strange energy. The rhythms all resumed even though everyone knew that it would all break down again in a month. Richard was still feeling the pressure, but it felt less real because there was an endpoint in sight. Then he could sleep for three weeks and be ready for the new season of stop-start routines that would dictate the rest of his life (probably).

That was one good thing about being a teacher though, as far as he was concerned. Most other jobs, time was like an endless desert. Work was forever. A school schedule made sense to him. Money was tighter, and it was exhausting, and he was still living in fear, but it could have been so much worse. At least he would get a break every once in a while.

Until then though, everything was busy and weird. The school had a program where teachers would sit in on each other’s classes, and Dinesh and Richard were to trade. Richard imagined what Dinesh would write.

_Incomprehensible, not in control of the class, total pushover, complete loser, sure, I like him, but fire this man._

On the other hand, Richard imagined that Dinesh probably never left his desk and only spoke words of contempt to whatever student dared to ask a question. So, you know, it would even out.

Also, he wasn’t actually sure if Dinesh liked him.

Richard had no idea how he was supposed to act natural with Dinesh in the back of the room silently judging him, especially when he had no idea how to act natural in the classroom to begin with.

It was a review for the final, so there wasn’t much of a game to be off of, but he still felt nervous. Even when Dinesh wasn’t looking at him or writing notes, he could feel him sucking away his energy. He was shocked that he didn’t have a panic attack right there.

The review went badly. Questions hung dead in the air before one student would inevitably answer because bless her, she couldn’t stand to leave Richard hanging. Richard was hesitant to try to call on anybody else because he could all too clearly remember being in school and silently begging teachers not to call on him because even if he knew the answer there was no way for him to get the words out.

And honestly, if Dinesh wasn’t there and didn’t need to see _some_ example of his teaching, he probably would have just made it a silent study period, even though he knew it would just devolve into everyone talking amongst themselves and he would get yelled at later for having the loudest classroom in the hall.

After it was over, Richard cornered Dinesh to ask how he did.

“Oh, fine. You did fine.” Dinesh said. Even poor, trusting Richard didn’t believe him.

“Come on,” Richard said.

“I’ve seen worse”, Dinesh shrugged. “Look, I have to go, okay? Just come to my classroom later and see how a pro does it.”

“I will!” Richard called after him, which he instantly felt like was the stupidest thing he ever said.

**

Richard couldn’t believe what an idiot he was. How could he not think of “review Jeopardy”? It was one of the only things he liked about high school, and he didn’t even think to do it. But Dinesh, who didn’t give a shit about anything, was in full command of the room, with kids begging for him to call on them. He was even smiling!

And worse yet, everyone knew the material. It wasn’t like Richard’s class with everyone scrambling to remember even a single thing. Dinesh’s kids answered questions confidently, and more often than not, they were right.

Richard wanted to look happy, or at least like he was intently taking notes, but instead he just held his head in his hands to hide the fact that he felt like he was about to cry.

The scores were tallied, results were in, Dinesh was a great teacher and Richard was the worst. He felt like he was holding his breath for the next two hours, wishing he could go talk to Jared. But he still had classes to not teach. He stumbled hard, to the point where even some of the students asked if he was okay.

“Sure, I’m just getting a cold or something.”

“Gross”, was the reply.

He had to smile a little bit.

Later, Jared emphasized that his students liked him.

“They ask how you are, that shows that they care, right?” he asked.

“I don’t know, Jared. There’s no reason why they would.”

Jared moved from the other side of his desk to the chair next to Richard, to close the gap and make them friends.

“Just because you don’t see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”

He wanted to put his hand over Richard’s, to give him some kind of warm touch, but he didn’t. The last thing he wanted to do was freak him out. It didn’t seem to work.

“Uh…thanks, Mom.” Richard said while giving him a sideways glance.  “But it’s just like, I mean, Dinesh doesn’t care, you know? He told me he doesn’t even want to be a teacher and is only doing it because his parents made him, pretty much, but he’s _good_ at it. That doesn’t seem fair.”

“Well, he’s been at this school for about three years now. He’s just more experienced. And it’s also possible—and I don’t know Mr. Chugtai very well—but he could just be, you know, putting on a show of not caring to intimidate you. Or something like that. You know?”

“I guess,” Richard said. “But like, you said he’s more experienced. I can’t stop thinking about the fact that like, I’m so shitty at this I’ll get fired before I have a chance to even be good at it.” Richard’s face showed that the idea of getting fired terrified him.

“I doubt it’ll come to that. I’ve looked at your students’ test scores, and they’re really not bad enough to even cause concern. They’re not super high, but it’s physics. That’s expected.” Jared assured him.

“You uh, you looked at the test scores?” Richard looked surprised, like he thought Jared was spying on him.

“Richard, it’s my job.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry,” Richard laughed.

Jared looked at the clock. It was almost five.

“Listen, Richard, this is weird, I’m sure, but do you want my number? If you ever want to talk sometime.” Jared got up to start to leave.

“Oh! Sure,” Richard got his phone out. “And um…I’m sorry, I feel like I’m just loading off all my problems on you or something so like, I’ll give you my number too if you ever want to um, talk to me I guess. Not that I’d be helpful at all. But, you know.”

“Sure.” Jared was trying not to sound too excited. “And if you ever want to hang out, get together sometime, just call me.”

 _Ugh, stupid. Too much too soon_ , Jared thought.

“Yeah, okay.” Richard said. He quickly put his number into Jared’s phone.

When he got into his car, Jared looked through his contacts.

 _Richard Hendricks._ There he was. They were friends now. He had no idea if he would ever have the courage to ever dial that number. But it was there. At least it was there.


	8. I wanna ask but I just stare.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> more like "boner land".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from "car wash hair" by mercury rev.
> 
> we're almost there, y'all! and this is the scene i thought was gonna blow some minds and i hope it does.

It was weird, but Richard thought about Jared a lot. He would be doing something, like playing a video game or listening to music, and he’d wonder what Jared would think. He wondered what kind of music Jared liked. Probably not the kind of blaring electronic beats that helped Richard focus. Sometimes, he would have a dream with Jared in it. Weird stuff. Once, the fleece of that vest he saw Jared wear all the time was like a wide field he couldn’t even see the end of. Jared helping him to build a computer at his mom’s house in Tulsa. Things like that. He didn’t know why he did it. Jared was comforting, and he was really nice to him and everything, but it was weird to just have a person occupying your thoughts all the time. It wasn’t something Richard had ever dealt with, at least that he could remember. But then, other than Big Head, he hadn’t really wanted any friends either.

Once he had a dream that Jared was about to kiss him and that really freaked him out. But he wasn’t the one initiating, so it was probably nothing. It didn’t mean he was gay or anything. They’re dreams, they don’t mean anything. Most likely. Even though people didn’t think about their friends all the time. But then, he didn’t know. There was so much that nobody talked about that he had no idea what was normal. But he did know that whenever someone asked “am I the only one who does this?”, a chorus of a thousand people would pipe up to say, “oh my god! I do that too! I thought I was the only one!”

So he was probably fine.

He still never called him though. It felt too weird. Even with the signal that Jared clearly wanted to be friends outside of work, Richard couldn’t make the first move. Which was probably why he had only had sex around three times, and they were all mortifying. Not that the situations were the same, but the reason why they played out the way they did was due to Richard’s incompetence. He couldn’t teach, he couldn’t fuck, he couldn’t be friends with a person, what exactly could he do?

He was feeling particularly hopeless when he got a text from Jared.

_Hey Richard, it’s Jared._

His phone practically leapt out of his hand, he tried to text back so fast.

_How are you doing?_

He couldn’t exactly be honest and say “I’m sad because I’m thinking about how I’m going to fuck this up just like I do everything else,” but he could at least hint towards it.

**_Not so great._ **

He added an emoji because he figured Jared would like that, even though it completely went against his normal texting style.

_Do you want to come over? I was going to paint my apartment today, you could help._

Of course, Richard couldn’t help. He had never done anything like that, and he was sure that he’d completely ruin Jared’s hard work. But he accepted anyway. He had to.

He hadn’t considered that he had nothing to wear. Richard had this weird thing, texture sensitivity, he guessed, where he really could only wear certain things, otherwise he couldn’t function at all. So he didn’t have a reserve of clothes that he could just ruin at will. He tore apart his drawers and his closet, and settled on a white undershirt and a pair of jeans his mother bought him once that fit in the waist but were too long. He had to roll them up. It wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. He threw on a grey hoodie and went to the car. It was raining.

On the way there, he imagined Jared’s apartment was warm and had just the right amount of light. He probably decorated it like an old lady, he thought. Or maybe it was totally Pinterested out. He was so wrapped up in considering the possibilities that he missed the turn. Or maybe he missed it because he didn’t think that Jared, who was, what? 27? He didn’t know. But he didn’t think that Jared would have lived in what was obviously a senior citizens’ apartment complex.

Maybe he lived with his grandparents. Or his parents were really old. So maybe his apartment really would be decorated like an old woman lived there. Maybe one did.

He found himself getting nervous. Some of that was the omnipresent clicking of oxygen tanks and the rolling of walkers across the floors and in the elevator. Richard never was good with sick people. He didn’t know how Jared could do it. He was clearly so much better a person that Richard could be. Maybe that was the rest of what was making him nervous, that he couldn’t really account for. That Jared would uncover his secret, that he was a bad person. He had some badness inside him that Jared was blind to. But too much time together and…

Too late. He was at the door, he couldn’t turn back, no matter how exposed he felt. He had to wipe his hands on his jeans just to get them dry enough to hold the doorknocker.

Jared had very clearly done this before. He came to the door wearing baggy jeans, covered in paint streaks, and an absolutely decrepit t-shirt with no sleeves. With no sides, even, as Richard couldn’t help but notice. It had some picture Richard couldn’t make out and said

bauhaus

Bela Lugosi’s Dead

on it.

“Richard! Come in!” Jared ushered Richard through the door. Everything was covered in drop cloths, but Richard really just went back to the shirt. It hung loosely across Jared’s chest and just split open at either side. Richard could see way more of Jared’s pale skin than he ever expected to. He could see his ribs. It was weird. He had to consciously stop himself from focusing on it.

“Here, you can put your sweatshirt in my room.” Jared said, and pointed to an open door at the other side of the apartment. Richard hesitated for a second before he walked down the hall. Going into Jared’s room felt so intimate. Still, he couldn’t resist finding out how Jared lived.

Jared’s room was white. There were stacks of books everywhere, and Richard looked at the spines. A lot of self-help and motivational books, unsurprisingly. A book called _Toxic Parents_. A lot of female authors. Joan Didion. Toni Morrison. Anne Frank. Judy Blume. Books from everywhere. Philip K. Dick, even, which certainly surprised Richard. They all looked worn and ancient. Some were library books, that Jared must have taken (which _really_ surprised Richard). Others looked weather-damaged, like maybe Jared took them from boxes left in the street or something. Richard looked around some more and came across a photograph on one of the bookshelves.

The photo showed a younger Jared, with long hair, well over his ears, pushed away from his face. He was smiling. Next to him was a guy who looked like his exact physical opposite. A short, chubby, black guy with no hair at all and thick black glasses. He was resting his head on Jared’s shoulder. A friend? A boyfriend?

At this point, Jared walked in and asked Richard if everything was all right. He hadn’t realized he was taking so long.

“Oh,” Jared said, noticing the picture. “That’s Ben. He was my first, um…”, he hesitated, “he was my first boyfriend.”

“Oh, okay. When was this?” Richard was trying to act as if he didn’t even care. Which he didn’t, but trying to convey that to another person always made it seem like you really cared a lot.

“College. Pretty late college, actually,” Jared thought. “I was too shy to date. I still am, I guess. It was my last year, and Ben and I met through my a capella group. It wasn’t that serious, but you know, it was my first time being with somebody, so it meant a lot to me. He’s in New York now. He wanted to be an actor.”

“Do you keep in touch?” Richard asked.

“Oh, no, not really. Some people are just in your life for a little while. It was like that.” Jared said.

They stood awkwardly for a minute.

“Okay, should we get started?” Jared asked.

“Oh! Yeah, I’m sorry.” Richard had completely forgotten why he was even there. He folded up his hoodie neatly before he followed Jared out. He wouldn’t usually do that. Just something about where he was, and who he was with.

Richard got distracted again when he saw a record player haphazardly shoved into the kitchen. He wondered what kind of music Jared liked. Other than Bauhaus, apparently, who Richard had never heard of, but it had to be a band, right?

Jared was busy taping up the edges of the room, but he noticed Richard eyeing the record player.

“You can put a record on if you want,” Jared said.

“No, that’s okay. Um…you can pick one.” Richard didn’t want to admit that he had never used a record player before and didn’t know how to work one.

“Sure, just hold on.” Jared finished taping a corner and went to the kitchen. Richard watched him kneel to the floor to a stack of records. He picked one out. Richard couldn’t see what it was. He probably wouldn’t have heard of it anyway, he admitted to himself.

The needle dropped, and some weird combination of keyboards and guitar started up. It was busy music. Richard kind of liked it, though.

“What is this?” he asked when Jared walked back over.

“Oh, this is Miles Davis, In A Silent Way.” Jared picked up the roll of blue tape and handed it to Richard. “Do you want to do that side?” He looked toward the other wall.

Richard tried really hard to focus on what Jared had done before, but he wasn’t really paying attention then, and it showed. He tried not to seem nervous. He was just putting tape on a wall. It shouldn’t have been hard.

“Did I do it right?” Richard asked when he finished. Jared turned to look.

“Oh yeah, you did fine,” he said. Every word Jared ever said was infused with this maternal kind of sweetness. But Richard still noticed when his hand smoothed over a bumpy line of tape. He didn’t say anything.

“All right, so I’ll get started up here, and you can go down there,” Jared said, taking a stepstool from the kitchen. He dipped his roller in the pastel green paint and went to work. Richard tried to follow. This gave him a view of how Jared’s skin pulled over his ribs, and how long his arms were, and, and, and.

Richard was hesitant in applying the paint to the wall, but Jared kept assuring him that it was easy.

“And anyway, some of the textures from uneven painting can look nice. So don’t worry.”

Miles Davis was blowing away on the trumpet and the guitar player was stabbing through the record, and Richard had to admit that the music was kind of sexy, in a way. It wasn’t supposed to be, but he was feeling it. It was all very hazy and dreamy.

Eventually, Jared changed the record to something else. It was more jazz, at Richard’s request. This was even busier, even denser. It allowed Richard to lose sight of his fear of failure and just get things done. And sometimes to pause and stare. This kept going for hours. The room got greener and the light got darker, and Jared flopped onto the floor on his back, signaling that they were finished. Richard sat down next to him.

“Do you feel better?” Jared turned onto his side and rested his head on his hand.

“What?” Richard asked.

“Earlier today, you said you were feeling bad.”

“Oh,” Richard laughed, then laid down on the floor too. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

“Are you hungry? I can order something.” Jared asked, and went to the kitchen to grab a takeout menu. He came back with a menu for a Vietnamese deli. “This place is excellent. And, um…they will leave the cilantro out for you.”

Richard felt his cheeks get hot.

Jared called, and Richard noticed that he didn’t have to put on a separate phone voice, that he didn’t spend an hour deliberating on whether or not to call and then it was midnight and the restaurant was closed.

Richard thought _I can’t believe Jared is so cool_ , in earnest.

Richard laid on his back and looked up at the walls. He noticed that he couldn’t actually tell where he painted something and where Jared did, so he guessed he did a good job.

“So, this is a weird question, probably, but why do you live here?” Richard asked.

Jared sat up on his elbows. “Oh, well. Actually, I call it an apartment out of habit, but it’s a condo. I inherited it. From one of my old foster parents. She had no other children, and we kept in touch. I helped take care of her in the end.”

Richard cleared his throat.

“And I guess I could sell it, but I don’t know why I would. I like it here, and she gave it to me.” Jared shrugged.

“Yeah,” Richard said. He turned to look at Jared. “You’re kind of a sentimental person.”

Jared laughed.

“I suppose so.”

“I like it,” Richard assured him. Jared smiled and looked away. The food got there. Once again, Richard could not eat neatly. They sat on the floor, the drop cloth acting like a picnic blanket. Every once in a while, Richard would notice Jared looking at him, smiling, and looking away. Every once in a while, he would do the same.

The food was gone, everything thrown back into the takeout bag, which was shoved in a corner. Richard and Jared sat next to each other, shoulders almost touching. And Richard was feeling weird, and the past five months had been nothing but weird, and he was entering the stage of giddy exhaustion, and nothing mattered anymore.

“Jared, I just wanna say thanks. You know, you’ve just been so nice to me and you’ve helped me out so much and like, I doubt I deserve it, but it means a lot. And this is stupid, but I…” and Richard got so close to Jared’s mouth that he could feel his breath but he stopped himself.

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” he said, and he pulled back.

“No, it’s okay. I didn’t realize…” and Jared didn’t want to finish the sentence and so he pulled in and kissed Richard. And Richard kissed back, and it was without jitters, and they could taste the spice from each other’s mouths. Jared put his hand down the neck of Richard’s shirt and Richard backed away.

“I’ve never kissed a guy before,” he said. He didn’t say what he would have assumed he would say in this situation, which was ‘I’m not gay’, but he didn’t want to figure out what that meant, not now.

“That’s okay. Do you want to stop?” Jared asked, taking his hand out of Richard’s shirt.

“Not really,” Richard said, and he put his own hand inside Jared’s shirt, resting it on the small of his back. It felt good, and he had been staring at Jared all day, and he was so tired and whatever he was feeling, he was feeling it. And so he kissed Jared again, and Jared kissed back, and it all felt very high school, but everything felt high school these days.

They made out for a long time before Richard decided that he had to go home. They made no plans to get together again and neither of them knew what that meant. If any of it meant anything.


	9. I am a patient boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> erlich arrives, dinesh is leaving, richard is thinking about shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from "waiting room" by fugazi.
> 
> richard's sexual non-crisis is autobiographical as hell but mine was angstier.
> 
> we're almost there! one more chapter left! get ready!

 Richard was glad that it was the end of the semester, because he had too much on his mind to deal with work on top of it. He had some busywork for the kids to do, but grades were already calculated, if not actually turned in yet, so it really didn’t matter. He just wanted them to be doing something.

He and Jared hadn’t talked since the weekend before when they made out. Richard really didn’t know what to say or what to think.

He was having a sexual crisis _of sorts_ , but really, he just felt relieved. It made a lot of sense that he liked guys. Maybe he did all along. When he was younger, he was anxious about the possibility. There wasn’t any guy he had a crush on, but somewhere inside he knew that the potential was there, and that scared him. And the fact that he had no proof scared him further.

The fact that he kept going back to that day, to the softness of the skin right above Jared’s waist, that was probably proof enough.

It just felt like there was a lot to do. That he would have to tell people, tell his parents, tell Big Head, and he didn’t totally know what he was supposed to tell them anyway.

“I made out with a guy and given the chance, I’d probably do it again.”

It was kind of embarrassing, more than anything else. He wasn’t sure if he was gay. Bisexual, he guessed, but that honestly seemed a lot sexier and more exciting than he was capable of being.

Maybe he just liked Jared. Maybe he was making it up because Jared was nice to him and it felt good to have attention paid to him.

_God_ , it felt good though. He didn’t really think this was fake, it was just one of the many possibilities his brain ran through and he felt like he had to acknowledge.

He felt too shy to talk to Jared. Maybe this was a one-time thing. “Some people are just in your life for a little while,” that was what Jared said. Maybe Richard would be like that to him. He just had no idea what to say after what happened. If they had gone any further than just making out, Richard probably would have quit his job just to avoid any awkwardness.

He didn’t let himself dwell on the possibility of going further for very long.

There were 3 more days left in the semester, then people would be going home for Christmas. Or, he reminded himself, probably not. These kids already are home. He couldn’t really afford to go to Tulsa. His mom understood. He taught her how to set up Skype so they could see each other on Christmas. His sister and her daughter would be there, so it wouldn’t be so bad. They wouldn’t be lonely without him.

One of the kids asked him what he’d be doing over the break and he said “sleeping”, and everybody laughed, and some kids said “same,” in unison and all whooped and high-fived each other.

Richard actually kind of liked his job at this point, at least for moments like that. He felt like he was actually a teacher, not an imposter, not an obstacle to learning. So he would get there.

 

On the second-to-last day, the school had a speaker come in for an assembly. More killing time. This time, it was some Silicon Valley tech millionaire no one had ever actually heard of. The school had to take what it could get. Richard sat with his class in the bleachers of the gym, waiting. He saw Dinesh, who gave him a nod of acknowledgment. He scanned the room some more and saw Jared, who didn’t see him. He decided he would try to catch up with him later but wondered if he actually would.

The speaker came in. He was big, with blond curly hair. He wore an obviously thrifted corduroy blazer. Everyone was silent, listening to the slapping of his flip-flops on the wooden floor.

Pretty typical for a tech guy, Richard thought. Then the guy grabbed the microphone.

“Hello, everyone. I am Erlich Bachmann, the founder and visionary behind Aviato.” His voice boomed. He said the word “Aviato” with an unspecified accent, probably his idea of what Spanish was. Richard looked around. Most of the kids were already rolling their eyes at him.

“When I began Aviato, I had no idea that it would lead to my being bought out by a major tech company, thereby granting me universal respect and the ability to found my latest project, the ‘Garden of Tech Eden’.” He paused for laughter, but Richard had no idea why. “That, of course, is what many are calling my incubator. What I do is take in those who have viable ideas for apps and I give them a place to work, I give them access to investors, but most importantly, I train them, like baby birds, in my ways.”

Richard could see that none of the kids were buying it.

“Now, I believe that one must open one’s mind in all possible ways to be an effective leader. For me, this meant ingesting psilocybin mushrooms and going on a vision quest in the desert, something I encourage all of my incubees to do—wait, hold on, what are you doing?”

At this point, various administrators, including the principal, wrestled the microphone out of Erlich’s hand and announced that the assembly was over. The kids whooped and cheered. Erlich looked thoroughly wounded from what just happened. But Richard knew that the kids who were present would be talking about his assembly for years. Which seemed to be exactly what he wanted anyway.

As the chaos died down, Richard searched for Jared again, who was staring at Erlich being led out of the gym. Jared’s face showed a mix of sadness and embarrassment. Richard was amazed by his empathy. He didn’t know how Jared could do it. He didn’t know how someone could understand people that well. He certainly didn’t. And he had no indication at all that Jared wanted to talk to him, so he let it go.

At the end of the day, Richard ran into Dinesh in the parking lot.

“So that was something,” Dinesh said as he walked over to Richard’s car.

“I guess.” Richard chose to stand up rather than keep his awkward half-standing half-sitting pose.

“You know, I’ve never heard of that guy but like, he takes app pitches, and I’ve been working on an app, I’m thinking of pitching it to him.” Dinesh said casually, in a way that was not really casual at all.

“Really? That guy is a joke.” Richard said. As soon as he said it he realized how mean it sounded.

“Richard, look at where I am. I’m a joke too. But this is something, it’d be better than being here my whole life. At least I can say I tried, you know?”

“So are you going to quit?” Richard asked.

“I don’t know. Hopefully. I mean, not like, today. I have to see if it works out. I’d finish up the year.” Dinesh looked over at the building in front of them. “Fuck this place though, man.”

Richard knew Dinesh didn’t care, but he said, “I kind of like it now? I think?”

“Really?” Dinesh looked shocked.

“I don’t know. I feel like…I could like it. Like, maybe I won’t be so hopeless at it if I stay. And I don’t have anything else going on.” Richard said. This was a moment that would have been conducive to cigarettes, but Richard was still not that jaded, and Dinesh was hellbent on entering the tech world, where smoking was practically a capital offense.

“Well, good luck, man.” Dinesh said and put his hand on Richard’s shoulder.

“Yeah, you too.”

Richard got in his car and drove home.


	10. You were nervous, I was nervous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the end is finally here!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from "the sad skinhead" by faust.
> 
> it's finally over! i hope this chapter doesn't seem too dashed off. I've had the scene in my head for a while, but sometimes I kind of philip k. dick shit when i'm excited about reaching the end so i just fly through it.
> 
> also i wish a cryptozoology-themed bar existed. that's the most blatant wish fulfillment i've ever written.

On the last day, there was a holiday party for the faculty. It took place at a bar that was themed around cryptozoology and aliens. That sounded like it should have been a ridiculously expensive hipster bar, but instead, it was shitty and dank. It seemed appropriate.

Richard went on the off chance he might be able to talk to Jared again.

Richard didn’t know that Jared went on the off chance he might be able to talk to him again.

When Richard got there, the bar was packed, and people were already getting loaded. The atmosphere was raucous, but not in a club way. It was hard to explain. Club raucousness (not that Richard would know, but he imagined, you see) was for the sake of itself, brought on by youth and horniness and MDMA. This was months of steam being blown off. This was people chugging hard liquor to forget.

Dinesh was there, sitting at the bar. Gilfoyle was there too, which surprised Richard, as he assumed that substitutes wouldn’t be at the party. Gilfoyle was wearing a knitted sweater with a pentagram and Baphomet on it.

“Gilfoyle, what are you, a Satanist?” Dinesh asked.

“Yeah. You wanna see my tattoos?” Gilfoyle said.

“Jesus, of course you are. God, that’s so predictable.” Dinesh rolled his eyes at no one in particular.

“You love it.” Gilfoyle said.

Richard laughed. He wanted to thank Dinesh and Gilfoyle too, for getting him through difficult lunch periods. But they’d probably just make fun of him, so he didn’t. Things went on like they would. He listened to them bicker and chuckled quietly. He scanned the room and saw Jared, who was wearing an ugly Christmas sweater, but probably in a sincere way. Richard smiled, thinking about that.

He asked the bartender for a shot of rum, downed it, and went up to Jared.

“Richard!” Jared said. “How are you?”

Richard needed time to figure out if Jared was acting like they had never made out or not.

“Good. Where have you been?” Richard tried not to sound angry, but the phrase ‘where have you been’ always has some edge of malice to it.

“Oh, the end of the semester is busy. Listen, do you want to talk outside?” Jared asked, and he led Richard out the back. They were in the alley by the dumpster, but it was fine. It looked like prime drug deal territory, but it was fine.

“I missed you,” Jared said. “I hope that’s not weird.”

“No. Or, I don’t know. Um…I…uh, think about you a lot.” Richard said. “In general I guess but also like, what um, what happened? I think about it a lot.” He couldn’t look at Jared. His eyes were on the ground, his head faced the wall.

Jared didn’t know what to say.

“And I like, I don’t know, I mean I never would have thought that this would be something that would happen but like, it makes a lot of sense, you know? And you’ve just been so nice and like I’ve been thinking about it and like it was hard for me to figure out but you’re like…cute? I don’t know, that sounds weird but you know what I mean. Like, I’m…into you. And I was worried that it freaked you out, what happened or something. Did it freak you out?” Richard looked up.

“No, it didn’t freak me out.” Jared still didn’t know what to say.

“This feels stupid, like all of this stuff feels stupid, I don’t know what to do, like am I supposed to ask you out or something, that feels dumb, man.” Richard said.

“Well, you don’t have to.” Jared said. “If you don’t want.” Jared leaned against the wall of the bar. Richard did the same.

“But if I do though, like what do I do?” Richard had no idea what he was saying.

“Oh! Well um…let’s try this, okay?” Jared waited for a response.

“Okay.”

“Do you,” Jared emphasized the ‘you’, “want to go out with me sometime?”

“It still feels dumb,” Richard said. “But yes. Yeah, I do. I wanna do that.”

Richard looked over and Jared was smiling at him. It was beautiful. All the horrors of the semester were worth it.

“Do you want to go back to the party?” Jared asked.

“Not really.” Richard said. With this, he inched closer to Jared, lightly brushing his shoulder with his own. He hoped that Jared would know what he was thinking. It seemed like he usually did, in his scant experience.

Jared looked around, his eyebrows raised. He pushed himself off the wall, put one hand on one side of Richard, and swung around, his hand landing on the other side. This seemed weirdly assertive, Richard thought.

He pushed himself up to meet Jared’s mouth.

Good, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! i really hope you liked this, i really enjoyed writing it and reading all your comments and compliments. love y'all!


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